[ CROSSTALK ] So Richard you have sort of conquered the air, you have conquered so many things. And now you are working to conquer sort of the deepest depths of the ocean. And honestly what looks like plane to me behind us, but this is a deep deep water submarine. What is this all about? Well what it's all about is that our oceans haven't been explored. You know, the furthest American submarines, or British submarines, or French submarines have been under the sea is about 18, 000 feet. And because the pressure is so enormous below that, they'd never build a submarine to go deeper. We've built this submarine with the aim of going 36, 000 foot under the water and. To explore mountains and valleys and trenches that mankind has never visited and never seen before. What's the goal of this. I mean, is this going to turn into a commercial endeavor sort of like Galactic, like your airline. Will people, will you be touring people in depths. Below the surface of the ocean or is this purely scientific, purely sort of explorational. Well, you know, our dream is that if this is successful, if we can withstand 15, 000 times the pressure that an airplane has to withstand at 36, 000 feet. Then we, one day we would build a bigger craft and we will have astronauts, not, not astronauts we will have acronauts travelling with this to the bottom of the oceans to help you know, to help [ INAUDIBLE ] the oceans. There is something like 90 % of this species in the world have not been discovered and. Because they, they've never had a craft that can go below 18, 000 feet. So we, we, you know, we hope to be able to discover you know, literally numerous species down there. We'll find numerous wrecks. I mean there, you know there, I mean there are literally. Sure. Thousands of wrecks down there that nobody's ever seen. Lots of Spanish galleons. [ LAUGH ] With lots of gold. [ LAUGH ] And but but the scientists are frothing at the mouth with excitement with the idea. Sure. That we might overcome the technological problem of getting a submarine down there. You're taking this sub to the 5 deepest points in the ocean over the next 2 years. All around the world. Where did this idea come from? Well, the the original idea, interestingly, came from Steve Posner before he died. You know, he just wanted to break the record for being the first person to get, you know, solo dive to the deepest part of the world, the ocean. You know, we've taken his idea, you know, developed the submarine Hopefully, overcome all the technical problems that we needed to. and, and expanded the idea. And, and work, working with scientists we, we, we literally want to, you know, explore the Puerto Rican trench which is the deepest place in the Atlantic, the Mariana Trench, the deepest place in the Pacific, and the deepest place in the Arctic, the Antarctic and the Indian Ocean. And you know, some of, some of the life forms that we're gonna find down there are going to be breathtaking. We just have to hope that no giant squid fancies us for, for dinner! [ LAUGH ]. You have been called the serial entrepreneur. This is a venture that like so many things you do, no one has done before. You have the potential to break 30 Guinness World Records with this. And what I find fascinating Richard, is unlike a lot of other things that you do, other missions, hot air balloon trips across the Atlantic or Pacific, you're doing this alone. There's only room for 1 in there. Yes. I mean, Chris Welsh is going to do one of the dives. I'm gonna do another one of the dives. And then we'll have 3 other people doing 3, 3 of the other dives. and, yeah, it'll be quite lonely. I mean, it, you, you know, and, and and obviously this, you know, there are things that can go wrong. So we're, we're going to be. You know, going down, you know, relatively slowly. The submarine is made of copper fiber. We'll be listening out for pinging sounds which will indicate that, the pressure from the water is just too great, and we'll have to come back up. Mm hm. And then when we get to the bottom of the oceans. And remember, we're gonna be going down deeper than Everest is high. So just to put it in perspective. We're gonna have to watch out for you know, to running into ships or fishnets which get us you know, caught at the bottom of the ocean. Mm- hm. So you know, we're developing sonar to try to make sure that we don't, you know, that doesn't happen to us. And, and, and that we can have a safe dive.

Sir Richard Branson will pilot the Virgin Oceanic Submarine to the deepest points of the world\'s five oceans.

Richard Branson\'s extreme submarine